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A Little Girl who Wondered 



SEA STORIES FOR 

i 

WONDER EYES 



BY 

MRS. A. S. HARDY 

Author of "Three Singers," "The Hall of Shells" 







BOSTON, U.S.A. 

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 

Clje gltijenaettm tyvtzs 

1904 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 
JUN 1 1904 
Cooyrleht Entry 

CLASS a; XXc. No. 

^72 3 ± 

^JOPY B 



^ 



'V 





Page 

A Little Girl who Wondered . . . . . 9 

The Water Drops that make the Ocean . . . 13 

The Sand on the Seashore 17 

A Fairy Storybook • 23 

Sea Gardens 27 

Bubble Blowers and Fountain Makers . . . . 31 

Jellyfishes 37 

Sea Anemones 41 

Among the Coral Trees 49 

A Coral Parable 53 

Sea Fans 55 

A Star that ate Oysters 59 

The Sea Urchin 6s 

Who Beckoned? 69 

Sea Vases 71 

Bath Sponges 73 

A Little Merchantman 79 

Captain Fulgur and his House Boat . . . . 81 

A House with Two Doors 85 

Steeple Houses 89 

5 



6 CONTENTS 

Page 

Seashell Boats that lie at Anchor . . . . -93 

How a Giant went to Market 95 

Fishes 99 

Crab Stories 105 

The Crab that lost her Claw 109 

The Crab that was a Housebreaker . . . . m 

How Crab Babies Grow 113 

In Fiddler-Crab Town . . 115 

A Shark's Cradle . . . 119 

The Little Sea Horse 123 

An Early Breakfast ...... . . 127 

Chameleons of the Sea ....... 133 

More about the Squids 141 

An Ugly Relative 151 

"Wrecked is the Ship of Pearl" 155 





LITTLE girl sat on a great rock by 
the sea looking out over the water. 

As far as her eye could reach she 
saw only crested waves that came 
from far beyond ; and every wave was 
wreathed with foam that flashed like 
a coronet of jewels. 

She had never heard what people 
say of the strange ebb and flow of the tides, but she 
knew that twice every day the waves crept up to the 
rock on which she sat, and that twice every day they 
receded, leaving a stretch of sandy beach. 

" I wonder who calls the waves back into the deep," 
she said softly to herself, and a strange awe came into 
her heart. 

" I wonder if a Voice tells them when they may 
come back and play upon the sand," and as she 



IO 



SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 



spoke the tide of awe that rose in her heart gave deep 
colors to her eyes, like the colors in the sea. 

"O wonderful Sea, do tell me some of your secrets!" 
she exclaimed. 

For answer a great wave with a crest of foam rose 




up from the green and purple currents and broke with 
a roaring sea laugh almost at her feet. 

When the surf was gone she saw that the wave had 
left bits of seaweed on the sand, and shells, and queer 
creeping, wriggling little sea things. 

" So this is the way you answer me ! " she exclaimed, 
" and I have to find out everything for myself." 



A LITTLE GIRL WHO WONDERED 1 1 

She climbed down from the great gray rock to 
better see what the wave had left her. 

At first she saw only the shells and coarser wrack 
that lay exposed, but as her eye grew accustomed 
to the search she found countless treasures that had 
been left on the sand, in coves, and imprisoned in 
the tide pools. 

The longer and the closer she looked the more she 
was rewarded. 

The more she saw of the little sea things the more 
she loved them; and the more she loved them, the 
more she was able to find. 

There were little fleets, tinted and fragile, — such as 
she had never seen before, — stranded upon the beach. 

Scores of tiny beautiful objects lay glittering for a 
moment in the light, then buried themselves in the 
sand from sight. 

" I wonder what they all are !" she said. 

" I wonder where they came from. 

" I wonder how they can bury themselves so quickly 
in the sand. 

" I wonder, too, where the stretches of white, silvery 
sea sand come from." 

Long, graceful curves upon the beach marked the 
limit of the incoming waves, and all along the sand 
were strewn the children of the sea. 



12 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Slowly again the tide crept up the sand. 

" So, old Sea, you are coming back after your treas- 
ures, are you ? " said the child, " and I must go away. 

" I love your roar, and your sea songs make me 
glad; but I wonder what you are singing about. 

" I wonder where your bright waves come from. 

" Oh, I wonder and wonder so many things ! " 

For this little girl who sat by the sea and who won- 
dered — and for other girls and boys who wonder — 
these sea stories have been written. 





WE see the waves come racing in, one after 
another, like foaming steeds. 
The waters that roll and tumble in 
— ^ crested billows were not always in the 
sea. They were not always deep-colored with purples 
and blues and greens. Nor did they always break 
upon the shore with a roar like thunder. 

Even the water drops that crest a single wave were 
most of them born far away and very far from each 
other. 

They have traveled through many lands to their 
meeting place — the sea. 

Some of them came tripping along in merry little 
brooks that laughed and sang and ran races. 

Sometimes the merry little brooks leaped into each 
other's arms and journeyed along together, — no longer 
little rills, but rivers marching with a sterner tread. 

13 



H 



SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 



I know a river that stopped to work on its way, and 
at night the stars came down, with the new moon, — 
like a golden boat, — and sailed on its bosom. 

Many of the water drops that help to make the sea 
waves were once imprisoned in great icebergs, but the 
sun came with a golden key and unlocked the icy 
prisons and set the water drops free. 



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When they were free they ran and ran until they 
could slip into the sea. 

No rill nor raindrop has been too small to help 
make the waves. 

The little waves run together and help make the 
great billows that dash and roar. 

But the water in the brooks and rivers and rain- 
drops was sweet and good to drink. 

The sea water is salt and bitter. 



THE WATER DROPS THAT MAKE THE OCEAN 15 

That is because the water that has traveled through 
many lands has brought some of the salt and the bit- 
terness out of the soil it has washed over. 

Every drop of water that travels to the sea brings 
something with it. 

If you will take some of the sea water home with 
you and boil it, the water will vanish away in steam, 
but it will leave something behind. 

You will find left in the dish something that looks 
a little like snow. 

Taste it. 

It is salt and bitter like the sea water. 

If you can examine it with a magnifying glass you 
will see that it is in little white flakes. 

They are in many shapes and are called crystals. 

The square crystals are salt. 

There are oblong crystals too. 

They are lime. 

There are other kinds of crystals left when the water 
travels away, and they are not shaped like the salt or 
the lime crystals. 

Every kind of crystal has its own shape. 

Little wave and crystal 

Make a storybook ; 
All about a journey 

And the road they took. 




i6 




HE brooks and the rivers bring more than 
shining waves and bitter crystals to the sea. 
They are 

Washing with their silver hands 
Late and early at the sands ; 

and they bring grains of sand to the sea in their 
" silver hands." 

Rivers are strong and are often many years cutting 
roads through the rock in which to travel. 

Some of the pieces of the rock which they cut out 
they carry to the sea. 

Where the earth is very cold there are rivers of ice. 

They hear the sea call and travel, like the others, to 
carry it their gifts. 

Because they are ice these rivers must travel very 
slowly; but they carry heavy loads, which they drop 
when the ice melts. 

17 



1 8 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

The loads of mud and sand and rock grow so 
heavy that the brooks and rivers cannot carry all of 
them to the sea. 

They have to leave much by the way, but all carry 
some to the end of the journey and lay it down just 
where they step into the sea. 

The pebbles were not always round and smooth. 

They were once broken pieces of rock with rough 
edges and sharp corners. 

They have been rolled about in the water, and rubbed 
against each other, and ground by the sand till they 
have lost their rough edges and sharp corners. 

The sea is a mighty worker. 

Its waves are like hammers that pound and break 
the hardest stone and undermine and bring down 
mountains of rock. 

They are like millwheels, too, that keep stones 
whirling round and round upon other stones, crush- 
ing all that comes between them. 

The stones that are kept turning often wear holes 
through those stones upon which the waves keep them 
whirling. 

Sand is rock ground fine ; and the sand upon a sea 
beach is powdered rock from many different places, 
ever changing because the restless waves drag it into 
the sea and toss other sand upon the shore. 




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A River that cut its Way to the Sea 



19 



THE SAND ON THE SEASHORE 



21 



For more years than we can tell, myriads of little 
shell builders have lived and died, and their shells 
have gone back into the sea helping to pave its water 
streets with their fine white lime dust. 

This lime dust is mixed with the powdered rock 
that the waves are ever shifting. 

Now you know how the sand along the seashore 
is made. 





ITTLE Arab boys have their lessons writ- 
ten in the sand. 

It is in the sand that the gray old Sea 
writes lessons for us to learn, and strange, 
wonderful stories that are full of mystery. 

He makes the seashore like a fairy storybook. 
It tells of great giants from whom little water babies 
hide away, and of pirates who watch to rob the sea- 
shell boats that come sailing in. 

He tells too in his storybook of fairy parties at 
night down under the waves, where sea stars twinkle 
and magic lamps shine ; and to those who never tire 
of his tales of wonder he shows that the twinkling 
sea stars and the magic lamps that shine with lights 
of many hues are real, living sea creatures who are 
no less curious and interesting because they are so 
small. 



23 



24 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Many times in a day the waves dash up and rub 
out all the stories that have been written in the sand ; 
then new stories are written in place of the old. 

I will tell you some of the stories I found this morn- 
ing on the white sea sand. 

The waves were playing with a tangle of seaweed. 
They tossed it up again and again, catching it in their 
silver hands. 

Once, when the waves tossed it shoreward, I caught it. 

It looked like only a bunch of seaweed, but there 
were many stories wrapped up in the pretty tangle. 

It was hung full of tiny, living fairy lamps that I 
knew had been twinkling and flashing wondrously in 
some dark sea hall, and the story I read was of a 
beautiful sea garden with caves and arches where sea 
folks live and sea babies play. 

I read how when the fairy lamps flashed the sea 
people were having a gay carnival, and the sea mothers 
brought tiny sea babies and laid them to sleep in the 
corals and among the soft sea mosses. 

But the mosses and the long weeds that had been 
rocking softly to and fro became loosened from the 
rocks and the coral trees, and the waves carried them 
away with lamps still hanging in their branches 
and the sea babies safely wrapped in the mossy 
tangle. 



A FAIRY STORYBOOK 25 

I brought them all home and put them in a great 
jar of sea water. 

The sea mosses floated out like beautiful plumes; 
in the darkness the tiny lamps flashed again and the 
sea babies played as if in their own great garden 
under the sea. 

Another story, not like this, I read in the sand. 

The waves were rocking an empty shell upon the 
beach. 

The shell had been an oyster's palace. 

He never left it while he lived. 

It was only a little house to begin with. 

The oyster was so small that he only needed a very 
small house. 

As the oyster grew he made his house larger. 

He polished the walls and made them smooth and 
shining. 

He painted them too in pretty tints of pearl and 
blue and brown. 

Every day he made his walls a little thicker. 

But when I found his house it was empty. 

A hole was pierced through its wall. 

When I saw the hole I knew a sea pirate had been 
there and that the little king of the oyster palace 
would never live there again. 




2 6 





HE sea is full of gardens where bright sea 
flowers grow. 

Some of them will thrive in deep water 
only. 

Others love the shallows where the sunshine comes 
and brings them bright colors. 

Fair as are the gardens upon land, the sea has even 
fairer. 

And the strangest thing about them is, that many 
of the gayest things that grow in the sea gardens are 
not plants at all. 

Curious make-believe lilies and asters grow there, 
and nod and wave in the water as flowers on the land 
wave in the wind. 

There are coral gardens too in the sea, where grace- 
ful shrubs and branching trees grow. 

The coral trees are covered with bright blooms and 
leaves that seem half flower and half jewel. 




28 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Big and little burs, mossy and green and brown, lie 
in the lily beds and walk around in the coral gardens. 
But the jeweled coral blossoms and 
the flowerlike lilies and asters, and 
even the big and little burs upon the 
sand, are none of them plants at all. 

They are every one sea animals, that eat for break- 
fast and dinner and supper, and for lunch too, hosts 
of other animals, just as bright and pretty as they are 
themselves. 

Beside all the make-believe flowers that live in the 
sea, there are many true plants. But even these 
have their own strange ways of living. ' 

The seaweeds have no roots and many of them 
live and thrive while carried about by the waves ; 
others cling to rocks and shells with 
what look like roots, but are only suck- 
ers or holdfasts. 

The holdfasts do not feed the sea- 
weeds like roots; they only hold them 
in place. 

The waves bring us tangled bunches of seaweeds : 

These from a garden that no man sees, 
Where foot of mortal has never trod, 

Brought by the billows that we may learn 
Of these hidden works of a perfect God. 




SEA GARDENS 29 

Some of the seaweeds are fine as hair, others are 
like graceful plumes or silken tufts, and many are 
broad and bright like ribbons. 

Tossed lightly by the winds and the waves, we may 
imagine them singing in a soft fashion of their own: 

Green earth has her sons and her daughters, 
And these have their guerdons ; but we 

Are the wind's and the sun's and the water's, 
Elect of the sea. 

There are others that are hundreds of yards long 
and are twisted strong as ropes. 

Those that grow near the surface of the water are 
bright green, like grass and land plants. 

The lovely pinks and brilliant reds have their homes 
in deeper water, but, as they are not stay-at-homes, are 
often found in shoals and tide pools. 

The dull browns and olive greens love deep waters ; 
but the dear old Sea brings them with the others and 
lays them on the sands at our feet. 

Many of the seaweeds are delicate and shy, and hide 
in shady tide pools or among the rocks. We must seek 
for such as for shy land flowers if we would find them. 

But how they all love the curling waves ! Many 
varieties that look more fragile than flowers are borne 
unharmed through stormy tides. 



30 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

They even ride gayly in on white billows that break 
against great rocks with a deafening roar. 

To the seaweeds cling millions of little sea people, 
who, if they do not entirely escape notice, may be 
taken for seaweed blossoms or mermaids' jewels and 
hidden pearls. 

With a glass that magnifies, still other beauties and 
wonders are to be found, too small to be discerned 
by the eye alone. 

Oh, the water world is a fairy world ! 




J 




O read the stories and to learn the secrets 
of the sea we need to keep wide-open 
eyes and to watch many days. 

Not long ago you wondered why air 
bubbles came up through the sand. 

You did not think to dig into the sand, or you would 
have learned that all the sea stories do not lie on the 
surface. 

That is one of life's secrets, my little man, my little 
woman ! There are many precious stories that are 
hidden. 

There was a little palace buried in the sand where 
you saw the bubbles rise. 

The owner of the palace had his door ajar. 
Though covered with sand he breathes air as well 
as you. 

All the sea people breathe air. 



32 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Usually it is air mixed with water. 

He breathed out so much air that it came in a 
bubble up through the sand. 

Watch, and some day you will see a little jet of 
water coming out of the sand. 

It will look like a little fountain small enough to 
belong to the fairy people. 

That is just what it is. 

If you dig into the sand where you see the fairy 
fountain, you may find the little fountain maker. 

He has tubes in his body through which he draws 
in water and forces it out. 

Some of these fountain makers have very long tubes. 

They like to lie in the sand and do not wish to be 
discovered or to give up their pretty stories to any 
one, so they will quickly draw in their tubes and 
shut their doors if they feel a touch or a jarring of 
the sand. 

Some of them can dig down into the sand faster 
than you can follow them with your little seashore 
shovel. 

The next time you see such a little fountain, try to 
find the fountain maker and see what kind of house 
he lives in. 

If you will take him home with you and put him 
into a dish of sea water with a sprinkling of sand and 







33 



BUBBLE BLOWERS AND FOUNTAIN MAKERS 35 

pebbles for a floor, like the sea floor, the little fountain 
maker may feel so much at home as to show you the 
way he pushes out and draws back the tubes of which 
I have told you. 

We call these tubes siphons. 




36 





NCE upon a time some very strange sea 
people came sailing gracefully into port. 
The bodies of these strange people were 
shaped like flattened globes or disks, and 
were almost as shining and clear as glass. 
They were pale blue and purple and 
milky white. 

A little girl went to walk on the sea sand and saw 
the strange people. She stood looking at them a 
moment and then cried out, " Oh, see those beau- 
tiful great bubbles ! " 

" They look like round plates of pale jelly ! " said 
another child. 

Both were right, for the strange people looked like 
great shining bubbles and like globes of pale jelly. 

Long ago people had thought the same thing and 
had named them Jelly fishes. 

37 



38 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

" Sun-jellies," too, they are sometimes called. 

Queer people they seem, and the more we learn about 
them the queerer and more interesting we find they are. 

There are many kinds of jellyfishes that ride on the 
crested waves, that live in the coral groves and the sea- 
weed gardens. 

Some are several feet across, and others are almost 
or quite too small to be seen in the daytime. 

But even the smallest can be seen in the darkest 
night. 

That is because these people have such a queer 
custom. 

They have pale green lights which they carry with 
them. That is why they can be seen by night and 
not by day. 

There are often so many of these little light bearers 
traveling together that they make the waves look as 
if touched with fire. 

Sea people who have such light in their bodies are 
said to be phosphorescent. 

There are other things beside bubbles and globes 
of jelly which these queer people resemble. 

Some of them might be taken for seaweeds. 

Some look like little morsels of floating ice or tinted 
seafoam flowers. 

Others are like tiny clusters of glittering gems. 



JELLYFISHES 39 

The sea has so many of these gemlike organisms 
that we might imagine sometimes that a mermaid's 
jewel box had burst open and its glittering contents 
gone shimmering through the sea. 

The sea is full of animals that feed upon jelly- 
fishes ; and it is really a good thing that this is so, 
for if every jellyfish that is born were to live, the sea 
would be so full of them that there would be no room 
for anything else. 

In some places they cover the sea for miles and 
make " sea pastures " for the great whales. 

The jellyfish has still another name by which it is 
called. The other name is Medusa. 

Medusa was the name of a dragonlike woman whom 
the old Greeks put into one of their stories. Her hair, 
they said, was a mass of writhing, twisting serpents. 

Now many of our great jellyfishes have long stream- 
ing threads that float out from their bodies as it was 
imagined the Medusa's serpentlike hair streamed out. 

We call the jellyfishes' floating threads tentacles. 

Some of the tentacles are very pretty and look like 
bright seaweeds, fine ribbons, or glittering threads of 
glass. 

In this they are quite unlike the ugly serpent hair 
of the Gorgon Medusa, though the tentacles of the 
jellyfishes have power to sting, somewhat as a serpent 



40 



SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 



stings ; and for this reason great care must be used in 
examining them, or they will sting us for prying into 
their affairs. 

Their tentacles are filled with little stinging poison 
cells, which are of use to the jellyfish in benumbing its 
prey and as a defense against its enemies. 

Around the scalloped edges of some of the jelly- 
fishes tiny jewel-like points are to be seen. These 
points are supposed to be eyes. 

Jellyfish with scores of eyes, 

Do you ever wink ? 
I can see with my two eyes 

More than you, I think. 





YOU know how the field daisies grow. 
Every daisy nods with a crown of 
fringes around its head. 
' Many things that grow in the sea will 
make you think of the daisies, for they too have their 
little crowns of fringes. 

You will think they are sea flowers. 
Other people have thought so too. 
But if you can watch these sea flowers at home in 
the sea, you will find they have very queer ways of 
their own, not at all like the pretty daisy's ways. 

You will see their fringes wave to and fro, they will 
be pushed out and drawn in, and you will learn that 
these little fringes are like fingers reaching around in 
the water. 

If a little sea animal comes near these fingers, 
you may see it act as strangely as the sea flowers 

41 



42 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

themselves, and presently it will be drawn in and out 
of sight by the fingerlike fringes. 

You will learn that it has been swallowed by what 
looked so like a lovely fringed daisy. 

The fringes around the head of the flowerlike 
animal are called tentacles. 

Beautiful as they are, they are not so harmless as 
they look, but are crowded with cells that are filled 
with little poisoned threads. 

If once seized by the tentacles of an anemone, a 
baby crab is benumbed, a sea worm is paralyzed, and 
a fish soon ceases to struggle, and if small enough 
they are swallowed. 

All this shows that things are not always what they 
seem, and that we have need to keep wide awake if 
we would learn the real characters of the people who 
live in the sea. 

It shows too that what looked like a pretty flower 
could have been no flower at all, for flowers do not 
kill and devour animals in this way. 

That is what the people learned who had believed 
that one of these pretty sea creatures with the crown 
of fringes was a flower. 

They named it Anemone, after one of our daisy- 
like flowers. 

So Sea Anemone it is called. 



SEA ANEMONES 43 

The fringes, which we must learn to call tentacles, 
are very wonderful indeed. 

Small as they are they are hollow. 

Not only are they hollow, but each one is divided 
by thin partitions into tiny chambers. 

In the center of the circle of fringing tentacles is 
the mouth of the sea anemone. 

Directly under its mouth is the anemone's stomach. 

The stomach is like a bag with a hole in the 
bottom, through which the food passes into another 
bag, which is the body of the queer anemone. 

Whatever is swallowed is carried through the 
animal's body; when all the nutriment is taken 
from the food, that which is left goes back by the 
same road that it came in ; that 
is, it passes out of the animal's 
mouth. 

The larger sac is divided into 
chambered spaces. 

If you could cut across the 
body of a sea anemone and ex- 
amine it carefully, you would see 
that it has partitions which run out or radiate from a 
center like the spokes of a wheel. 

The tentacles are also rays arranged in a circle and 
running out from a center. 




44 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Many of the sea animals are made on this plan. 

Those that have this plan are related to each other 
and are called Radiates. 

The Radiates are very important people in the sea. 

There are many families of this name, who look 
quite different. 

They are of all sizes, from an eighth of an inch to 
more than a foot across. 

Our garden flowers stay where we put them. 

They cannot go for a walk. 

Sometimes the wind breaks their stems and carries 
them away in its arms. 

But if some of these make-believe flowers are 
watched, it will be seen that they travel about in 
the sea. 

To pull anemones from the rocks that are their sea 
homes would be to spoil them. 

Even if we do no more than touch them, their 
pretty fringes disappear. 

We are reminded of the striking of the clock in the 
fairy story. 

You know the story. It is of a fairy who stayed 
out too late ; at the striking of the hour all her fairy 
finery disappeared. 

So if touched, or even if the water be disturbed 
about it, the anemone draws in its fringes and 




Rocks by the Sea 



45 



SEA ANEMONES 



47 



disappears or becomes so old looking and wrinkled 
and dull and shapeless as hardly to be seen. 

This is a trick anemones play on their enemies, 
who thus lose sight of them, for they make them- 
selves look so much like the rocks and the seaweeds 
that they are unnoticed. 

The soft little anemones have learned this trick 
because great fishes like to feed upon them and 
hungry sea slugs bite pieces out of them. 

The sea anemone has no skeleton, and when it dies 
all trace of it quickly disappears. 





4 8 




THE CORAL TREES 






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N some parts of the sea the water is so 
clear that one may look far down to the 
bottom and see the forests of coral that 
are growing there. 

Coral trees are graceful and branch- 
ing, but they are very unlike the trees that grow 
upon the land. 

They bloom with soft, starlike animals in place of 
leaves and flowers. 

The animal flowers that cover the surface of each 
living branch and leaf of the coral trees are called 
polyps. 

They are made on the wheel plan like the anemones, 
and like them they have fine fringed tentacles about 
their tiny mouths. 

They are protected by skeletons of lime in which 
the tiny polyps hide. 

49 




50 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

The pieces of coral branches we so much admire 
are the skeletons of great numbers of little polyps 
who once lived in the branch together. 

They lived so close together that when they died 
their skeletons were still joined to each other. 

But when alive the coral stems looked 
very different from the dry, hard branches 
that we have. 

Then they were soft and downy with 
the waving, many-colored tentacles of the 
little polyps. 

We say they make the beautiful coral in which they 
live. 

They do not make it in the sense that a bee makes 
its honeycomb, though honeycomb and coral some- 
times resemble each other. 

The coral makers make their coral just by living 
the simple lives that God gives them. 

So they build better than they know. 

Their skeletons are made of lime, which the little 
animals gather from the sea water. 

The coral people are very sensitive, as we found 
their cousins, the sea anemones, to be. 

The bodies of all the little polyps in one coral town 
are joined together, each one opening at its base into 
the body of its next neighbor ; and if one little coral 



AMONG THE CORAL TREES 



51 



animal is touched or disturbed it quickly draws in its 
tentacles and hides in its stony skeleton, and instantly 
the trouble is told in some way to every one in that 
coral town, and each one draws in its curling fringes 
and hides as if it had been the one that was touched. 

There are two things they must have in order to live 
and make their fine corals. 

They must have warmth and clear water. 

Among the coral trees the strangest and the bright- 
est of sea animals live and play. 

Fiery red, brightest blue, golden yellow, and silver 
and green are among the colors to be seen there, mak- 
ing the forests under the sea no less gay than the 
gayest gardens on the land, or than our forests when 
painted by the frosts of autumn. 

Larger animals die and their bodies perish, but skel- 
etons of puny polyps last through the ages and become 
the foundations of large and beautiful islands. 

Surely to be little is not to be useless. 





52 




j^M PARABLE, you know, is a story that 
l\ means more than its words tell. 

It is a kind of fairy pudding with 
plums hidden in it. 
Here is a parable about the little coral builders. 
The Lord of the World said, " I need more islands 
to be homes of people that are to come." 

" We will build them for you," said the great whales. 
" We are large and strong. We will tear up the sea 
sands and pile them where you tell us." 

" We are too little to be of any use," said the little 
coral stars, "but we will do the best we can to make 
islands." 

Then the great whales and the dragons and the 
sharks and the dolphins laughed because such little 
people as the coral stars should have a thought that 
they could help to make islands. 

53 



54 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

They all laughed till the sea shook, and people said, 
"A storm is on the sea." 

Then the giants of the sea, the whales, tossed the 
sea sand into piles, and spouted and flapped and swam 
until the sea people were sure the islands must be 
almost done. 

But the waves washed the sand dunes back into the 
depths and the great whales were discouraged. 

But there came a day when the dashing waves were 
stopped by a wall. 

They ceased their angry roar and sang softly about 
low coral ridges that had climbed to the top of the sea. 

The waves laughed softly as they patted the ridges 
with their silver hands, and they said, " The little coral 
people will build islands yet." 

" We will help you, brave little builders," they whis- 
pered. 

So they washed the light sand up among the reefs 
and brought seeds to plant in the sand. 

The little coral stars built on. 

The sand settled more firmly among the coral 
branches. 

The seeds grew. 

And there was a day when the Lord of the World 
came and looked upon the islands and he was well 
pleased. 





HmBsRksBhRWRbBbbbBmBY*^ 


^l i 




SEA FANS 




fl^p 






HE waves of the warmer seas bring us 
samples from the sea fan factories. 

Their fans are of finest network and of 
many colors. 
The handles of these fans are like tough stems, 
covered with bark and having an expanded root. 

The " factory hands " who do this fine fan making 
are polyps, like the coral builders. 

Both gather their materials from the sea water, one 
making marbles and the other horny substances. 

Both sets of workers have the same kind of bodies 
and look like tiny stars. 

The expanded tentacles of each are around a cen- 
tral point, which is the mouth of the polyp, opening 
into its little bag of a stomach. 

The tentacles are furnished with stinging cells for 
defense and to help it in gathering food. 

55 



56 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Beside the fan factories there are feather factories 
in the sea, and whip factories too. 

The waves bring us samples of their work. 

The samples they bring from the feather factories 
are graceful plumes of purple and yellow, crimson and 
brown and white. 

Some of them are soft and fine and curling as a 
bird's feathers ; others are tough and stiff, but all are 
graceful and pretty. 

The sea fans and plumes and whips are all flexible ; 
that is, they bend. 

When they bend to the sea currents they look more 
like plants than ever. 

No wonder, is it, that people so long thought they 
were all beautiful plants, and that they still call them 
animal flowers? 

The little polyps are so small as to be each but 
a speck on the branch where it lives, yet working 
in harmony they fill the seas with mimic shrubs and 
trees and flowers. 

When alive in the sea our sea fans and whips and 
plumes were as much prettier than even our pretty 
dried specimens are as you can think. 

Then every one was set thick with what looked 
like flashing jewels of many colors. 









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Sea Fan, Sea Plumes, and Sea Whips 



57 





A STAR 



THAT ATE OYSTERS 






, r ?#HE star I am going to tell you about 
lived in the Gulf of Mexico. It was 



called a Starfish. 

It had hundreds of other starfishes 
to keep it company. 

When I first saw this star it was 
stealing oysters from Captain Ellis's oyster bed. 

Probably it thought as long as the oysters grew in 
its gulf they belonged to it more than to Captain 
Ellis, who did n't live in the gulf at all. 

One oyster shut its doors against the starfish. 
It did not wish to be eaten. 

But that made no difference to the starfish, who 
just pulled out its stomach and wrapped it around the 
oyster and sucked out its sweet life. 

After that the starfish put its stomach back again 
and walked away. 

59 



6o 



SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 



When it was walking away I stopped it. 
The starfish had five rays or points, and on the 
underside of its five rays it had rows of little tubed 
feet. 

For all it had so many feet it walked slowly. 
When I touched it, it objected. But really it could 

not help itself, 
so it drew in its 
rows of feet and 
lay very still. 

I went to catch 
a fiddler crab and 
when I came 
back my starfish 
had pushed out 
its little feet,— 
little worms they looked like, — and had started back 
for the oyster bed. 

I wanted to learn more about this star, so I turned 
it over on its back. 

I found its mouth in the very center of the underside 
of its body, but its queer little feet were drawn in again. 
I pushed it along into a shallow pool of sea water 
where a piece of driftwood lay. 

Soon its queer, wormlike feet were pushed out 
again. It was on its back, so I could see how they 




A STAR THAT ATE OYSTERS 6 1 

moved one way and another as if trying to find some- 
thing to take hold of. 

One of the queer feet touched the piece of drift- 
wood and clung to it. 

By this it drew its long ray a little closer to the 
wood and was able to touch the wood with others of 
the little feet, which clung as the first had done. 

In this way the starfish lifted itself little by little 
until it finally turned itself right side up. 

The feet of starfish are hollow tubes with suckers at 
the ends. They are called " tube feet." The animal 
will fasten itself to a rock by these tube feet and even 
allow its feet to be torn away rather than let go. 

An oyster sometimes shuts its doors and catches 
one of the arms or rays of a robber starfish. 

The starfish cares little for the loss of an arm, so 
snaps it off. 

They often break off their rays upon being picked 
up, or when the waves toss them into the sun, which 
gives them discomfort. 

As they are able to grow new rays, they are not 
much damaged by the loss of one. 

In some parts of the sea there are such large star- 
fish settlements as to cover the bottom of the sea. 

There are many kinds of starfish, and some of them 
have more rays than this one of which I am telling you. 




62 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

The rays are extensions of the body. 
Some kinds have a much larger central body and 
shorter arms than this one. 

One kind, called Brittle 
Stars, has rays which are not 
parts of the body and into 
which the stomach does not 
extend. 

This kind of starfish is 
sometimes called " sea spider," 
because its round body, to 
which are joined its long, sprawling rays, makes 
it look a little like a spider. 

Brittle Stars get their name from their trick of 
snapping to pieces when taken from the water. 

At the end of each ray the starfish has a tiny red 
speck, which is its eye. 

Mrs. Agassiz, in one of her pretty stories of star- 
fishes, says: " But let me tell you that five of their 
eyes are by no means so good as one of yours. Yet I 
once heard a story of a starfish which inclined me to 
believe that, if they do not see, they have at least some 
very keen perception of what goes on about them. 

" Starfishes carry their eggs near the mouth, and 
keep them safely by stretching their suckers around 
them, and thus holding them fast. 



A STAR THAT ATE OYSTERS 63 

"A friend of mine was one day watching a starfish 
in a large glass dish, which had its eggs folded within 
the suckers in this way ; and wishing to examine the 
eggs more closely, he parted the suckers, took the 
eggs away, and kept them for some time. 

" When he finished his examination he dropped 
them back into the dish. At once, to his surprise, 
the starfish seemed to be aware that its eggs had 
been returned to it ; and, moving towards them at its 
utmost speed (which is at best but creeping very 
slowly), it placed itself over them, folded its suckers 
once more around them, and so took them up again. 

" Wishing to be quite sure that this had not been 
accidental, he removed the eggs again, put the star- 
fish into another and larger dish ; and having placed 
it at one end, and putting some ob- 
stacle in the center of the dish to 
divide it from the other side, he then 
dropped the eggs in at the end op- 
posite the parent, as far from it as 
possible. The starfish immediately 
began its journey (now quite a long one for a starfish) 
toward its offspring; and, having reached them, cov- 
ered them and took them up again as before. 

"A third time the experiment was repeated, but 
always with the same result : the creature perceived 




6 4 



SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 



its eggs the moment they were placed in the same 
vessel with itself, and went at once to shelter and 
protect them. 

" You see by this it is not lost time to watch even 
the lowest creatures that God has made. They, too, 
care for and cherish their young; they have certain 
ends to fulfil in life, and they, as well as the higher 
animals, enjoy the existence that has been granted to 
them." 




/ 



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7\ 




THE SEA URCHIN 




HIS spiny fellow is a cousin of the 
starfish. 

They were neighbors in the Gulf 
of Mexico. 
Both were made on the Radiate plan and so were rel- 
atives of the sea anemone and the starry coral makers. 
This spiny fellow's name is Sea Urchin, 
He is sometimes called a "pin-cushion," a "sea 
porcupine," and a " sea egg." 

Our second picture shows how a sea urchin's shell 
looks when the spines are off. 

The sea urchin who lived in this 
shell had its home in the Pacific Ocean, 
but though living so far apart the two 
sea urchins were near relatives. 

Starfishes and sea urchins are very large families 
and are scattered through many seas. 

65 




66 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

When these sea urchins were alive their fringes or 
spines were soft and were moved at the will of the 
animals who lived in these round box skeletons. 

When they died the spines became hard and brittle 
and were easily broken off. 

The spines fitted over the little knobs which are 
seen in the second picture. 

These spines and knobs were arranged in rows 
dividing the round box into sections. 

Between the rows of knobs and spines there were 
very small holes, hardly as large as the point of a 
pin would make. Through these holes grew little 
tube feet. 

The feet were connected with the body of the 
animal within, and could be pushed out or drawn in 
like those of the starfish. 

An ordinary sea urchin has as many as two thou- 
sand tube feet. 

Neither of these sea urchins looks much like the 
starfishes, but if the arms of a starfish could be bent 
over until the points meet, the round ball thus formed 
would be something like a sea urchin. 

The sea urchin has a skeleton on the outside of its 
body, you see. 

It looks as if made of only a single piece, but that 
is because it is so perfectly done. 



THE SEA URCHIN 6 J 

Each skeleton is really made of five or six hundred 
pieces, all joined so nicely that no edges show. 

Yet it is at these seams or edges that the skeleton 
of a sea urchin enlarges. 

The little animals secrete a kind of chalky substance 
from the sea water, of which they make their round 
box houses. 

The mouth of a sea urchin is in the underside of its 
round body. 

The mouth and jaws are made of forty pieces. 

Five sharp teeth it has. They are worked up and 
down and across by strong muscles, and are able to 
break and grind hard substances to powder. 

The tips of these five teeth are easily seen, meeting 
in a point, and by breaking the skeleton of a dead 
urchin we find the long, large teeth still there. 

Oh, the sea urchin is a wonderful fellow ! 

The better we know him the more we wonder. 

In some places in the sea these little creatures lie 
so thick that the sea floor looks as if carpeted with 
soft moss and tiny tinted burs. 

They often hide themselves by burrowing in the 
sand, and, stranger still, they bore little caves for them- 
selves in the hard rock. 

How they are able to do this is one of their own 
wonderful secrets. 



68 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Dead urchins are not infrequently found imprisoned 
in these cavities, which exactly fit their bodies. 

Their very caution became their undoing. 

Lying quiet from the stress of waves, they grew too 
big to get out where they went in, so their caves 
became their prisons. 

They have fewer enemies than their cousins, the 
starfishes, but they love to lie in quiet pools and to 
hide away from sight. 

They have a funny trick of drawing seaweeds up 
on their backs to conceal themselves, and are even 
found carrying sticks and stones around on their 
backs for the same purpose. 

There is another kind of sea urchin that is flat and 
thin, and is called " sand dollar," " sand cake," or " cake 
urchin." 

Their shells are beautifully marked, and sometimes 
lie so thick as to pave the streets of the sea. 





N the edge of the sea, one morning, I saw 
something that looked, as the waves lifted 
it, like a hand beckoning to me from the 
water. 
What could it be ? 

With my long cane made from the stem of a palm 
leaf I reached out into the water and drew the strange, 
uncanny fingers to the shore. 

Though I did not care to shake hands with such 
cold and slimy hands, I picked the strange things up. 
I found that they too were things that grew in one 
of the sea's curious gardens. 

They were sponges, — a kind of sponge that grows 
in fingerlike bunches. 

I laid them on the sand beyond the reach of the 
ever-reaching waves. 

In a few days I went again to the spot. 

6 9 



70 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

My bunches of fingers were still there, but they 
were changed. 

They were no longer soft and slimy, nor bright 
colored. 

When I left them a part were orange red and a 
part were black. 

When I came to them again they were of a dull 
color, stiff, dry, and full of little holes. 

Though stiff, they were not stony and brittle, like 
the corals, but horny and fibrous. 

Who could have guessed they were sponges ? 

The stiff and fibrous parts were the skeletons of 
the sponge animals. 

The small holes through the spongelike fingers 
showed the passages through which water had passed 
when the branches were alive. 

All these passages were then lined with the living 
sponge slime. 

So it was a sponge hand that beckoned to me from 
the edge of the water. 





I" VASES 



t/A NOTHER day curious vases were 
l\ tossed up to us by the waves, as if 
L JL> the sea would lure us with the sight 
of some of its treasures. 
Well can the sea spare them. Many 
more are left upon the ledges in the 
great sea gardens. 

But hardly could we imagine the dark, purplish and 
brown masses standing there to have anything to do 
with our sea vases. 

Our vases are dry and tough and full of fiber. 
The masses upon the rocky sea ledges are soft, slimy, 
and covered with a thin skin. 
Both are sponges. 

Those upon the rocks in the sea are the soft, jelly- 
like, living sponge masses. 

Our vases are but dry skeletons that are left when 
the animals die. 

71 



72 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Such tough and fibrous skeletons, that hardly any- 
thing can bite, are a wonderful protection to the soft 
sponge animals. 

The soft, jellylike masses in the sea are really 
cities filled with sponge people ; and our vase, dry 
and rough though it now is, was once a little Venice. 

The sea washed in and out through its winding 
streets, and the sea people who lived in this little 
Venice were as busy " making a living " as larger 
people are in the larger Venice. 

This was a city of cells, and each cell was fur- 
nished with tiny hairlike feelers, — cilia we must learn 
to call them. 

These cilia kept up a ceaseless lashing by which 
the sea water was drawn in and driven out. 

With the sea water came also very small particles 
of food and lime which these sponge people require 
for their growth and their building. 





OUR bath sponges do not look much 
like the fingers and the vases we have 
been learning about. 

Bath sponges, you know, are soft and 
silky, yet they are skeletons too. 

The sponge animals that lived in them were soft, 
jellylike, and slimy, like those that lived in the fingers 
and the vases. 

There are many kinds of sponges, you see. 
Your bath sponges are full of holes ; there are large 
holes and small ones. 

All these openings run down deep into the sponge 
and are connected with each other. 

The fine holes are like little mouths that take in 
the sea water. 

They are fine so that they may serve as little sieves 
and keep harmful substances from entering. 

73 



74 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Floating in the sea water are very tiny animals upon 
which the sponge feeds.. 

The water that flows through every channel of the 
sponge carries these little animals with it. 

It also carries fine particles of lime which the sponge 
animal uses in making its skeleton. 

After the water has gone through all the little chan- 
nels in the sponge it passes out through the larger 
holes and back into the sea. 

Your bath sponge is made of the skeletons of several 
sponge animals that grew close together. 

You may know how many sponge animals lived in 
the piece you have by counting the largest holes that 
are in it, as each large hole with the small ones cluster- 
ing about it makes one sponge animal. 

Sponges come from tiny eggs. 

Baby sponges at first swim about in the water. 

They live their free life only a little while. Then 
all that escape the hungry mouths of their enemies 
fasten themselves to something and are soon sponges 
themselves. 

Another way in which sponge gardens are started 
is to cut the living sponge to pieces and plant the 
pieces in other places on the sea bottom. 

They may grow in almost any seas, but like best to 
have clear water and hard sea bottom. 




o 
w 
S 



75 



BATH SPONGES 



77 



When sponges are gathered for market they are 
treated much as our bunch of " fingers " was treated. 
The animal matter is allowed to decay ; then they are 
beaten and put in pens to be washed by the waves 
until they are clean. 




f6 





UR little merchantman has pearls to 
sell. 

He brings his pearls in a seashell 
boat that is lined with mother-of- 
pearl. 

His pearls are large and costly. 

Every pearl, he would tell you, has cost him days 
and nights of suffering and labor. 

Trouble and pain came to him. He could not rid 
himself of them. So he bore the pain patiently and 
overcame the trouble. 

At last the very things that threatened to spoil his 
beauty and to destroy his life have but added to his 
beauty and his worth. 

It was in this w T ay : cruel grains of sand washed into 
the oyster's shell. 

He could not get them out. 



80 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Who can tell what suffering the sharp grains caused 
his tender body ? 

Since he could not remove them, he set himself to 
work to cover them with the smooth, shining substance 
with which his shell was lined. 

At last, brave little oyster! by his patience and 
labor the grains of sand have lost their power to hurt 
and have been changed to rich and costly pearls. 






OUSE boats like this one are common 
along our coasts. 

The one who built this house boat 
was named Fulgur. Captain Fulgur 
we will call him. 

He first lived with many other little ful- 
gurs in a long row of cradles — like these. 
What a nursery for baby fulgurs 
was this ! 
Thousands of ^jfaa them were rocked, and tossed, 
and kept moist, N $Hand sung to by the waves un- 
til they were old \\W enough to go out into the wide, 



watery world by 



M 



-d?L bi: 



themselves. 
They were no ^c2?L bigger than a tiny grain 
of sand when they lay rocking in their queer cradles, 
but they were as perfect as if they were full-grown 
fulgurs. 



82 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

There came a time when they opened their close 
little cradles and all rolled out. 

They were such little fulgurs then that they had 
need of only tiny houses in which to live, and the 
walls of their houses were very thin indeed. 

The baby fulgurs were so small and tender and 
sweet that many of them never grew any bigger, but 
were eaten up by their sea neighbors. 

Our Captain Fulgur lived, though he had many 
hairbreadth escapes. 

Captain Fulgur had one good foot. He would n't 
have known what to do with two feet. No fulgur 
ever had but one. 

With his foot he could walk and burrow in the sand. 

When not in use the foot was drawn into a mantle 
or fold of skin. 

The mantle that covered the fulgur's foot was a 
part of his body, and a very important part it was. 

Inside the mantle there were other little folds called 
" gills." 

The gills were the fulgur's lungs. 

As Captain Fulgur grew his mantle gathered lime 
from the water and secreted a kind of glue with which 
to build out the walls of his house boat. 

He always built on by making additions at the 
opening of his shell house. 



CAPTAIN FULGUR AND HIS HOUSE BOAT 



83 



Captain Fulgur was fastened to his house boat. He 
could only live in that way. 

He had a door by "which he shut himself in. 

When he wished to open his door he had only to 
push his foot against it. 





8 4 



A HOUSE 



WITH TWO DOORS 




HE Scallop family live in many seas. We 
find them all along our coasts. 

We never tire of their beautiful shells. 
The shells are their houses. 

We often find them with their doors partly open. 
But touch one and how quickly its doors go 
together ! 

The doors are called valves. 
There are two of them. 

Bi means two, so seashells that have two doors or 
valves are called Bivalves. 

Their doors have a hinge and a strong muscle that 
draws them together, and they are painted in lovely 
patterns without and polished and shining within. 

But the little people who make these houses and 
who live in them are even more wonderful than their 
beautiful houses. 

85 




86 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Notice how each shell is decorated with a great 
number of rays or ribs. 

We wonder how a little animal could make them 
and keep the rays all so true. 

The under valve we often find flatter and of a lighter 
color than the one that is exposed to the light. 

From this we learn that the little 
shell maker uses the sunlight to help 
him in his painting. 

Scallops are not stupid creatures 
that always lie still in one spot. 
They love the deep places in the 
sea, but are often in the shallows and the tide pools, 
where we can watch them and wonder at their beauty 
and rejoice in the Love that has given to these tiny 
creatures such grace and skill. 

If they are disturbed, see how quickly they can bury 
themselves in the sand ; and they know so much that 
they roil the water to hide themselves from sight. 

Peer into the half-open door when the little house- 
keeper does not know you are prying, and you may 
see his shining eyes. 

But so much as touch him and snap ! go his round 
doors together. 

Scallops are sometimes seen at play, swimming and 
leaping and darting about in the water. 



A HOUSE WITH TWO DOORS 



S7 



This they are able to do by quick opening and 
shutting of their valves. 

The scallop has other names. 

One of its other names is Pecten. 

Long ago these shells were worn upon hats and 
mantles as a sign that the wearer was brave and true. 

Cockleshells are other kinds of " castles by the 
sea " that have the double doors. Cockleshell houses 
are in the shape of a heart. 

Many of them are a good deal 
larger than those of the scallop. 

They are painted too and beauti- 
fully decorated with rays or ridges. 

Some of the rays or ribs are them- 
selves trimmed with fine points and scales. 

There is almost no end to the kind of houses these 
little sea people build. 

The clams and the oysters, the mussels and the 
" razors " are all neighbors who have houses with 
double doors and so all of them are bivalves. 







ANY of the little sea people live in houses 
with steeple tops. 

There is one we often see that was built 
where seas are always warm. 

It is a large house and painted within as 
pink as a rose. 

We call this the house of a Conch or a S trombus. 
When the ani- 
mal living in such 
a house goes to 
make calls or to 
market, it advances 
by queer jerks and 
jumps. 

It always carries 
its steeple house on 
its back. 

8 9 




90 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

There are smaller houses, millions of them, built 
with spires or steeples, many of them much sharper 
than that of the strombus. 

They are all made in one piece, and so are said to 
be Univalves. 

Many are so small we are not likely to see them. 

But, no matter how small they are, each one is as 
carefully made as if it were a big conch shell, for 
God's work is always perfect. 

Most of these kinds of shells are ornamented with 
colors and with knobs and spines. 

The spines are for protection as well as for orna- 
mentation, and cover some shells with needlelike 
points. 

Many of the people who live in these steeple houses 
are not so good as people who live in houses with 
steeples ought to be, for they are housebreakers. 

They are not only housebreakers, but they devour 
the inmates of the houses whose walls they pierce. 

Even the thick walls of an oyster's palace are not 
proof against the boring of their . filelike tongues, 
which are supplied with rows of sharp teeth. 

Shells are often found that have been pierced or 
that have been broken and mended. 

These little sea people do their mending so nicely 
that it hardly shows ; even the decorations that have 



STEEPLE HOUSES 



91 



been marred are repaired and the delicately painted 
traceries are renewed. 

Wonderful little sea people ! 



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9 2 



SEASHELL BOATS 




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*VT7" HEN storms are on the deep the waves are 

VY lashed into foaming masses that seem to 
roll mountain high. 

If the sun shines the mountains of mist are hung 
with quivering rainbows. 

But there is neither sunshine nor rainbow to lighten 
many a stormy sea. 

Our good seamen cast "out anchors fastened to long, 
strong ropes to steady their tossing ships. 

Seashell shallops also are beaten about by the stormy 
surges and often they suffer wreck. 

But there are little mariners who sail in seashell 
boats who know how to anchor their vessels too. 

More wonderful still, they spin and twist their own 
cables as they need them. 

A cable that holds a seashell boat is called a 
byssus. 

93 




94 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

The little cable maker has a foot which he can use 
as a spade to dig for himself a hiding place in the 
sand or as a spinning machine. 

There is a little gland in his foot from which he 
throws out the fine threads, which are fluidlike at first 
but quickly grow hard and strong 
in the air. 

Some seashell cables are stiff and 
horny, others are fine and soft as silk. 

Cloth has been woven from the fine silk byssus 
threads taken from some shells. 

Often a little notch is to be seen in the edge of shells 
through which the byssus cables pass. 

We find mussels so anchored, and the shining 
Anomias. Anomias are the thin, transparent, gold 
and silver shells so abundant along our Atlantic 
coast. 

They have the under valve flattened and a little hole 
near one edge through which the tiny cable passes. 

Our great beautiful Pinna or Wing Shell on the 
Florida coast is moored by a bunch of cables that 
are tough and strong enough to hold so big a bark. 




HOW A GIANT 



WENT TO MARKET 





HIS giant was many times larger than an 
elephant. 

When he was only a baby he was fifteen 
feet long. 

His head was one third the length of his whole body. 
Though his head was so huge, each ear was so 
small that a dime would cover it, and his eyes were 
hard to find. 

He lived in the sea, yet he was not a fish ; for he 
had warm, red blood, and he had to come often to the 
surface to breathe, and would have drowned if he had 
stayed under the water too long. 

His mouth was big enough to hold half a dozen 
men at once, and he had a tongue that was ten feet 
broad and eighteen feet long. 

This was the kind of a giant that went to market. 
He was a king in the sea. 

95 



96 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

But, being a good, old-fashioned, sensible king, he 
preferred to go to market for himself. 

The sharks and the dolphins and the sea serpents 
did not mind his coming. 

They knew he was not after any of them, so they 
just flirted their tails — their way of shaking hands, I 
suppose — as they met. 

They knew he was going to market for little crabs and 
lobsters and shrimps and jellyfishes, for, big as his jaws 
were, his throat was not more than two inches across. 

There were other giants that went with him, for 
these giants are fond of each other's company. 

But the market they went to had food enough to 
supply them all. 

These giants had no teeth, but in their mouths were 
rows of long bones, hundreds of them arranged in plates. 

These bones formed a kind of sieve through which 
the giants forced out the water taken in with their 
food, for their markets were in the sea and the waves 
were colored with what they fed up on. 

The giant I am telling you about is the great Green- 
land Whale that plunges about in the icy northern seas. 

He is never cold among the icebergs, for over his 
huge body he wears a layer of fat like a warm overcoat. 

Whales love their big babies and will die in their 
defense. 



HOW A GIANT WENT TO MARKET 



97 



They have lungs and must have plenty of air. 

Their noses or " blowholes " are on top of their 
heads, so they are able to breathe while their bodies 
are still under the water. 

These giants of creation leap into the air and sport 
among the foaming billows as gayly and gracefully as 
if they did not weigh so many tons. 





9 8 





E are learning how in all God's wonderful 
world the creatures he has made are fitted 
for the kinds of lives they are to live. 

The body of a fish is shaped so that it may pass 
through the water with the utmost ease and speed. 

We shape the keels of our boats on the same plan, 
making the prows wedge-shaped. 

Yet boats that are our pride for swiftness cannot 
match a little silvery salmon as it shoots through the 
water. Even an arrow is not more swift. 

Every part of a fish is so made as to help it to swim. 

Its body is flexible; that is, it bends. 

It is covered with a kind of slime. 

Most fishes have an air bladder extending along 
the back. 

A fish's fins are its wings to fly with through the 
watery world. Its tail is wing and rudder together. 

Its fins are folds of the skin which covers its body, 
spread out and made strong with spines. 

99 



IOO SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Some fishes have their fins so large, and strong 
that they can use them as wings to fly short distances 
in the air. 

By rising on their winglike fins they are often able 
to escape their enemies in the water. 

Fishes must have air to breathe, but they can only 
breathe air that comes to them through the water. 

Their gills, which are to be seen on each side of 
their heads, are delicately fringed and may be called 
their lungs. 

Their eyes are so made as to enable them to see 
under the water. 

I have seen fishes that lived in a river in a dark cave. 

They had no eyes. No light entered the cavern and 
so they had no use for eyes. 

Only scars showed where eyes belonged. 

Some fishes live in hot springs. 

A fish's scales are its armor. See how they over- 
lap so as to make a complete covering; yet they do 
not hinder the easy and graceful movements of the 
wearer. 

Scales are of all sizes from a mere point to a large 
plate ; and their colors are beautiful beyond words. 

They are often brilliant as gems, and as the light 
flashes over them they show all the hues of the 
rainbow. 




In Boothbay Harbor 



FISHES 103 

Imagine a fish whose whole body flashes with 
colors like those on the throat of a humming bird. 

Some are burnished blue ; others are red dashed 
with shining black and touched with silver; others 
again wear golden armor with trimmings of silver, 
or with spots and bands of black. 

And as if all these bright colors were not enough, 
some fish are electrical, and like living lamps they 
glide through the sea. 

A fish when carefully studied will be seen to be of 
rare beauty. The hand of the Divine Artist is as 
skillful in the coloring of these sea people as in the 
painting of the manifold blossoms of the forest; and 
we marvel that the Great Creator of Worlds is so 
careful in the making of a little fish. 

Mr. Longfellow has given us a fine description of a 
beautiful fish in his story of " Hiawatha." This is 
a part of it: 

On the white sand of the bottom 
Lay the monster Mishe-Nahma, 
Lay the sturgeon, King of Fishes ; 
Through his gills he breathed the water, 
With his fins he fanned and winnowed, 
With his tail he swept the sand-floor. 

There he lay in all his armor; 
On each side a shield to guard him, 



io4 



SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 



Plates of bone upon his forehead, 
Down his sides and back and shoulders 
Plates of bone with spines projecting! 
Painted was he with his war-paints, 
Stripes of yellow, red, and azure, 
Spots of brown and spots of sable ; 
And he lay there on the bottom, 
Fanning with his fins of purple. 





HE old sea had several crab stories on the 
beach this morning, and they were all illus- 
trated in natural colors. 

The first crab story I read was about a 
fine King Crab. 

He was a big fellow who had been swimming the 
sea, and burying himself in the mud, and walking 
clumsily up and down the sea sand for years. 
He always wore a coat of shining mail. 
He had one set of legs to swim with and another 
set of legs to walk with. 

Wise men who study about king crabs say they 
have bluish-colored blood. 

King crabs are proud of their " blue blood." 
Another reason why this king crab may have felt 
important was that wise men had quarreled over him 
and his family. 

*o5 



106 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Some of the wise men thought he ought to be 
counted along with other kinds of crabs. 

Other wise men said, " No ! he belongs to the spider 
people." 

The king crab might well feel sure that anything 
the wise men quarreled about must be more or less 
important. 

Perhaps it made him feel that his family were great 
folks to know that one of the wise men had said, 
"King Crab's early relatives were fossils"; that is, 
they had been preserved in stone. 

Now all these things were true. But the king crab 
himself was not a bit wiser nor better either for his 
blue blood or his relatives in stone. 

Like the rest of us, who are not king crabs, it did 
not make so much difference what his relatives had 
been as what he himself was. 

Whether our king crab knew this or not, he had 
grown to feel very big, and his shiny coat of mail was 
too tight. 

The only thing for him to do was to take it off and 
have a new one. 

So he cracked it open and crept out between the 
plates. 

He had done this same thing many times in 
his life. 



CRAB STORIES 



107 



The skin or soft armor under his old armor soon 
became as tough and shining as the smaller one he 
had cast off. 

It was his old armor I picked up on the beach. 

And this is the story that I found along with it. 

The king crab is also called Horseshoe Crab. 





to8 



THE CRAB 
THAT LO\w"^'^£R CLAW 





NOTHER crab story I found in my 

picture book by the sea. This time it 

was of a pretty Lady Crab or Sand 

Crab. 

She wore over her body a lovely shell of many 

pieces. It was white and was dotted and ringed with 

delicate shades of purple and red. 

She has a way of burying herself in the sand clear 
up to her eyes ; and there she sits and watches for her 
food, which is sure to come, for the sea water is full 
of tiny eggs and of animals which crabs like. 

If danger approaches our Lady Crab quickly disap- 
pears beneath the sand. 

She has two arms that are long and large and 
furnished with pincers. 

Next to these arms are three jointed legs on either 
side which end in points. 



109 



IIO SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Back of these are her two flattened swimming feet, 
one on each side. 

At least, that is the way she was made. 

But this morning I found one of her long jointed 
arms with jts big claw lying upon the beach. 

The story told how there had been a crab battle and 
my Lady Crab had gone off leaving an arm upon the 
sand. 

She cared very little about this, however, as she 
has the power of growing another arm or leg or even 
eyestalk when one has been lost. 

She may have cut off her own arm, for crabs doctor 
themselves, and when they find a member is injured 
they simply snap it off and grow another. 




THE CRAB 



THAT W 




BREAKER 




HERE once lived a little prince in his 
castle by the sea. 

The prince's name was Prince Fasci- 
olaria. 

The castle in which he lived he had built himself. 
He had worked all his life to build it, and now 
that it was large and fine he was as happy as he 
could be. 

He had polished his palace walls within and painted 
them without. 

He had made a strong door with which he had shut 
himself in. 

But one day when little Prince Fasciolaria had the 
door of his castle open, he felt a sudden shock, the 
walls of his castle shook, and before he could shut his 
door he was dragged out and torn to pieces and eaten. 
Yes ! he was eaten. 



1 1 2 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Then the robber went into the beautiful palace 
Prince Fasciolaria had built, and lived there as if it 
were his own. 

The robber who killed and ate the prince and lived 
in his castle thereafter was called the Hermit Crab. 

The way he gets into the house is very awkward, 
for he just backs in. 

Then he curls the back part of his body around a 
column in the center and allows himself to be pulled 
to pieces before he will let go. 

If he goes for a walk he carries the house upon his 
back, for he is afraid to be caught out of it, because 
he has lost a part of his protecting armor. 

The shell armor that should cover the whole of his 
body is gone from the part that is kept covered, and 
that part has become so soft and tender that he is 
always in terror lest it be hurt. 

His back pairs of legs too have lost their strength 
and are withered and helpless from having been 
cramped and unused. 

That is the price the robber has to pay for the kind 
of life he lives. 





HOW 
CR^B BABIES 
H}ROW 





A BY crabs are hatched from tiny black 

eggs. 

Mother sea crabs are very careful of 
their sacs of eggs and carry them until 
they are hatched. 

Baby crabs grow fast, but are so unlike their mothers 
that one who did not know them would never guess 
they had started to be crabs. 

Some of them seem all head and eyes and tail, and, 
as if they themselves did not know what to do, they 
keep turning head over heels. 

Millions and millions of them tumble about in the sea. 

While young they change their skin many times, 
each time growing more crablike. 

With the change of skin, legs and claws develop, 
but even when they get to be crabs they still seem un- 
certain of themselves, and they scurry along backwards 



114 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

and sideways as if they did not quite know which 
way their legs were meant to go. 

Their breathing organs are frilled, light-colored gills 
on the underside of their bodies near where their legs 
and bodies join. 

Crabs like to wear armor. The crab's armor is 
really its skeleton, its bones being needed on the 
outside rather than within its body. In most kinds 
of crabs this outside skeleton or armor is beautifully 
polished and painted and dashed with color, even to 
the ends of the claws. 

There is one kind of crab, however, that wears only 
white. 

If you live by the sea you will sometimes see crabs 
carrying pieces of sponges and seaweed and even 
other sea animals on their backs. This is one way 
in which they seek to hide from their enemies. 

Many of the crabs in the sea are so small that it is 
not easy to see what they are doing or even to see 
them at all. 




HE little Fiddlers are so common and so 
funny that we must learn something about 
them and the dwellings they make for 
themselves. 

Their towns are near salt marshes or the sea, and 
their houses are built below the surface of the ground. 
It is interesting to watch them at work, but if we are 
to succeed in this we need to keep very still, for they 
are timid little people who do not like to be watched. 
They honeycomb the ground with their burrows. 
The mud or sand they dig out they work into crumbs 
or little balls which they carry away. 

We may dig carefully down and examine their bur- 
rows, which are an inch or two in diameter and all 
made on the same plan, with passages running in the 
same direction and with a little chamber at the end. 

us 



Ii6 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

The right pincer of the male fiddler is very much 
larger than his left. When he enters his hole he backs 
in and leaves his large claw uppermost to serve as a 
door or to be ready to snap at an intruder. 

The name of Fiddler Crab has been given him 
because of this strange large claw or pincer, which he 
keeps drawing back and forth something as a violinist 
draws his bow. 

He is also named the Calling Crab, for as he 
scurries along sideways it is easy to imagine he is 
beckoning with the long waving claw which he car- 
ries awkwardly above his head. 

Some one tells us this may be his funny crab way 
of saying to us, " Catch me if you can ! " 

The little fiddler does not enjoy being tumbled 
about by the saucy waves. 

If they handle him too roughly, he quickly makes 
for himself a little cave in the sand and creeps in and 
covers himself up. 

He accomplishes this by digging out the sand and 
making it into crumblike balls which he lays outside 
the hole. 

When the hiding place is large enough he pats the 
edges of it hard, then creeps in, and with his deft little 
claws works the sand over himself firm and hard. 
When the waves come again he is not to be found. 




Sunset on the Water 



117 



A SHARK'S 




CRADLE 




I T T L E four-cornered black cases, 

like the one in our picture, are often 

picked up along the seashore. 

Queer little pouches they are, and 

to the questions of the curious very 

unsatisfactory answers are often given 

concerning them. 

" They are mermaids' purses," says one. " They are 

mermaids' comb cases," says another ; and questioners, 

both young and old, wish they might know more about 

them. 

These queer black cases with their pointed corners 

are little cradles that the old Sea is ever recking, — 

sometimes none too lightly. 

There are two kinds of these cradles; one has its 

corners ending in slender points, and is a shark's egg 

case B 

119 




120 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Another kind has its corners drawn out long and 
threadlike, and contains an egg of the skate, — a 
broad, flat, smooth, unsightly fish with a whiplike tail. 

Each egg case 
accommodates but 
one baby shark or 
one baby skate. 
Let us be thankful that it is but one. 

Through a slight opening in the egg case enough 
water is admitted and allowed to pass to keep the egg 
moist. This is necessary to its life. 

Many eggs are cast upon the sand and become dry 
and lifeless. 

Notwithstanding this, and that each little black 
pouch contains but a single egg, sharks and skates 
abound and are the terror of the seas. 

Fierce and strong, swift and voracious, well may 
they be feared by the other inhabitants of the seas 
as well as by man. 

The four-jointed jaws of a shark have many rows of 
teeth which turn backward and prevent the escape 
of its prey. 

The teeth are sawlike at the edges, and while the 
outermost row may stand straight and ready for use, 
other rows may be folded back nearly flat against the 
animal's jaw until ready for action. 



A SHARK'S CRADLE 12 1 

Sharks often follow a vessel for days, swallowing 
greedily whatever may be cast upon the water. 

They sometimes take very strange things into their 
stomachs. 

I once read that a shark when killed was found to 
have a lady's workbox in its stomach. 

The shark wears little or no armor, for there are few 
animals in the sea that it fears. 

I will tell you a shark story that is true. 

One morning, just as the sky began to grow bright 
with the fires of dawn, a few of us who had risen early 
that we might behold the sea in her garments of mist 
saw a strange sight. 

A little way out from the shore there were fish 
leaping into the air ; hundreds, thousands of them 
rose together a few feet from the water, and as they 
fell back into the sea as many more were in the air. 

In wonder we exclaimed and called others to witness 
the strange scene. 

Directly the mystery was explained, for the sharp, 
large fins that cut the surface of the water betrayed 
the presence of sharks. 

We were familiar with the sight of those great fins 
rising above and cleaving through the surface of the 
sea; and now when we saw them we understood why 
thousands of fish were leaping into the air. 



122 



SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 



A number of sharks were chasing a great school of 
fish. In the hot pursuit both sharks and fish had 
dashed into deep water within the sand bar and near 
the shore. 

As the sharks were upon them the terrified fish 
leaped into the air, seeking to escape the open, hungry 
jaws of their pursuers. 





THE 
LITTLE SEA HORSE 



Did the baby mermaids ride 
Through the ocean's foamy tide, 
Guiding thee, their gallant steed, 
With a rein of red seaweed ? 

Who can tell ? 

In thy sea life did a troll 
Groom thee in a coral stall ? 
Was a cockleshell thy manger, 
Filled with seaweed, little ranger? 

Who can tell ? 

Do the little mermaids weep 
In their sea caves, fathoms deep, 
That before their ocean door 
Thou art bridled nevermore ? 

Who can tell? 




Certain it is the mermaids would not choose these 

little horses if they were in haste, for they are but poor 

swimmers and strong sea currents upset them. 

123 



124 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Quiet, slow-going, and harmless little fishes they are, 
who had rather " stand " with their tails twisted around 
the seaweeds than to gallop through the seas. 

They love the warm waters where they have their 
homes, but it is not an uncommon thing to find the 
little steeds stranded far up our coasts. 

They attach themselves to seaweeds and are often 
carried by the waves long distances from their native 
" race tracks." 

Their heads and necks so resemble those of horses 
that the name Sea Horses fits them well. 

Those we find upon our coast are not over six inches 
in length. 

Their tails are slim and curling and finless, and by 
them the little fishes fasten themselves to corals and 
to seaweeds, and thus safely anchored they do not 
mind the currents and the tides that might otherwise 
wash such little steeds away. 

Their position in the sea is generally rather erect, 
whether making their way through the water or when 
anchored by their twisted tails to some sea root they 
feed in their seaweed pastures. 

They have a kind of crest upon their heads which 
gives them the appearance of little knights of the sea. 

Though but little fishes they show great love for 
their young. The males have a pocket upon their 



THE LITTLE SEA HORSE 



125 



breasts in which they carry the eggs and also their 
little " sea colts " after they are hatched until they are 
old enough to go out into the great water pastures 
and take care of themselves. 

While they are in this pocket it is said they are 
nourished by a kind of fluid secreted there. 

The pouch is drawn in a little at the top to keep 
the little sea horses from falling out into the sea before 
they are old enough to shift for themselves. 

In his pocket or brood-pouch, as it is called, the sea 
horse carries as many as two thousand eggs at a time. 

Sea horses may be called cross-eyed, for their eyes 
do not work together. 

One eye may be looking straight ahead while the 
other is turned in a different direction. 





126 




I \OWN by the sea in the early morning I 
f|J|M\ read another tale. 

Queer little footprints dented the sand. 
The footprints were such as only the 
feet of birds could make. 

The tale that was written was of a banquet the old 
Sea had been all night preparing for the birds of the 
air, for the water birds, and for the long-legged waders. 
The tides and the winds and the waves had all 
helped to spread the feast upon the white sand of the 
beach. 

A night of fasting had sent the birds early to the 
breakfast they were sure to find. 

In the sand we learned who had accepted the old 
Sea's invitation, and in some cases we read what had 
been eaten for the breakfast. 



127 



128 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

We knew who came by the kind of footprints left 
in the soft sand. 

Mangled sea snails and empty pompano shells 
revealed some of the things that had been eaten. 

Warblers had been there. They came hopping 
over the sand, leaving fan-shaped tracks \ / 
in pairs. '*" ' i 4 , 

Other footprints with webs between the 
toes showed that | j, , swimmers had 

touched at the '''"III 1 "" ^4 port in the early 
morning. . ™* 

Still others had left tracks that were farther apart, 
three-toed and not in pairs. We knew that these last 

(were the tracks of long-legged waders, who 
0^ [ with their long and j slender beaks had 

""""^ searched the sand \^f for worms, crab 
babies, and sea spiders. """'^ 

A few yards away large, uncanny birds were greedily 
feeding upon dead fish, regardless of our presence. 

They were buzzards, the scavengers of southern 
seacoasts. 

In spite of their being ugly and unmannered, we 
extend to them a kind of respect, for we learn to know 
they are among the best friends of the dwellers by 
the tropic seas, disposing as they do of decaying sub- 
stances which otherwise must be harmful. 



AN EARLY BREAKFAST 1 29 

Awkward as they seem when on the land, and greedy 
and offensive as they are in their manners, they are 
really beautiful in flight. 

With easy, graceful motion, and with only an occa- 
sional flap of his great wings, a buzzard seems to be 
showing what an easy thing it is to fly. 

There is another class of sea birds which are equally 

ungraceful 

^ upon the 

land, but for 

whom we have also a certain 

kind of respect. 

They are the great 

pouched pelicans. 

They care for no 

invitation to dine upon the sand, for 

pelicans have been fishers through many 

generations. 

The great pouches under their beaks 
are large enough to contain several quarts, and are not 
infrequently filled with hundreds of little fishes. 

These birds too are strong upon the wing, and it 
is a beautiful sight to see them hovering in the air 
at a considerable height above the water, circling and 
balancing until their keen eyes discover a school of 
fish in the depths below. 




130 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Rapidly then they dart downward, plunging into 
the water with great force and diving out of sight. 

Very soon they appear again with the fish that they 
have captured. 

However the ungainly pelican may waddle upon 
land, it can but be admired upon the wing or as it 
dashes down, striking the water with a great splash, 
or again as it sails away, now rising, now falling, with 
the crested waves. 

The bodies of these birds have great numbers of 
spaces beneath the skin which are filled with air. In 
this manner their bodies are cushioned, and to strike 
the water with such force as they do gives them no 
shock. 

The pelican's nest is built upon the ground among 
the reeds at the water's edge. 

Its two or three white eggs are guarded well, and it 
is in the wonderful pouch beneath its beak that the peli- 
can carries supplies of food and water to its nestlings. 

There is an old-time fable telling that the pelican 
tears its breast that it may nourish its brood with the 
blood that flows therefrom. 

Those who have studied pelicans say that this is 
not true, but that the idea may have arisen from see- 
ing the red tint that appears upon the beak and the 
breast of some of these birds. 



AN EARLY BREAKFAST 131 

Pelicans are to be seen in great numbers along the 
shallow borders of the sea. 

Where new land is forming at the southern extrem- 
ity of Florida they may be easily studied. 

No one harms them, for they, like the buzzards, are 
useful as scavengers. 

Without fear they gather around passing vessels 
for scraps that may be cast out. 

Where piles are driven down near the water's edge 
to break the stress of waves, hundreds of these birds 
are to be seen perched, motionless and solemn, — a 
funny lot of fishers, — watching for game in the sea 
beneath them. 

Once upon a time I sat on the deck of a little 
steamer and watched pelicans as they sailed grace- 
fully over the water and finally swooped down with 
a great plunge into the sea. 

Gray and white gulls were often their companions, 
and I learned that the friendly pelicans not uncom- 
monly share their fish with the gulls ; for of the fish 
that is torn to pieces enough is left upon the water 
to supply the gull with a meal and at no labor of its 
own to capture it. 

One who sailed with me, and who knew the habits 
of these birds, said, "It is not uncommon to see a 
gull sitting confidingly on the back of a pelican as 



132 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

the latter rides through the billows; the gull secure 
and happy, sure of the meal the kindly pelican will 
furnish. Because of its service to the gull, the peli- 
can is sometimes called ' the gull's tender.' " 

Surely the ancients were right when they made the 
pelican an emblem of charity. 





NE night a wandering harper came 
down to the sea. 

He was old, yet ever young. 
The wandering harper was the wind, 
and the sea was his lyre. 

We who were near and who loved 
both the wind's songs and the sea's 
songs hastened to the beach. 

Little wave messengers ran up the 
silver sand to meet us and to lay gifts at our feet. 

Far off and near the music swelled, sweet and 
strong, low and loud, yet always so wonderful that 
no man could understand it. 

But there was something more than even the songs 
of the wind and the sea which held us in thrall. 

*33 




134 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

Overhead the full moon sailed through billows of 
cloud, and across the sea lay a road of gold and amber. 

The music of the old harper upon his sea lyre and 
the strange beauty of the moonlit sea cast a spell 
over us. 

"What does it mean? " said our man of science, as 
awed and tender as a little child. 

" It means the sea folk are holding a carnival," said 
another. 

"I wonder, oh, I wonder!" said the little girl who 
so often had sat by the sea and wondered. 

Her whole figure was radiant and her white pinafore 
fluttered like wings in the moonlight. I put my arm 
around her with a queer feeling that she might flit 
away through that track of light to an unknown shore. 

" It means," said an old fisherman who had joined 
us, u that there '11 be thousands o' squids that never '11 
sail the seas after to-night. Ye mark my words ! ye '11 
be thinkin' at rise o' sun that it 's the squids that 's 
been a-celebratin' ! " 

All night the wandering harper played. All night 
the beautiful moon sailed through the cloudy seas and 
sent down its track of light to the waves below. 

In the gray of the morning the little girl who had 
wondered was at my side and together we went again 
to the beach. 




o 
O 

O 

o 

X 



135 



CHAMELEONS OF THE SEA 1 37 

Truly the old fisherman knew ; for hundreds of 
squids lay stranded upon the sand. 

We helped a few back into their water home ; but 
of most of them it was true, as the old fisherman had 
said, " they would never sail the seas again." 

We were anxious to study them at our leisure, but 
first sought our friendly fisherman at the lighthouse. 

" Ye see it 's as I told ye ! " he said as he fastened a 
small squid upon his hook. 

" But why are there so many of these queer fellows 
on the sand this morning ? " the little girl asked. 

" That I can't tell ! " answered the ancient mariner. 

" Reckon they had a party last night ; reckon they 

sang 

' We won't go home till morning ! ' 

It 's morning, an' there they be ! " 

" But you told us last night that they would be on 
the sand in the morning. How did you know? " she 
asked. 

" It all comes o' livin' by the sea, my little miss, an' 
gettin' acquainted with the habits of its folks," the old 
fisherman replied. 

" Moonlight draws the squids as much as it draws 
the tides, I reckon. There be folks we call 'moon- 
struck,' an' that's what I reckon squids be. When 
the moon shines of a night, ye may be pretty certain 



138 



SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 




there'll be squids on the shore in the mornin'. 
Nobody knows exactly why; leastwise / don't. 

" Squids travel backward mostly, through the shal- 
lows ; an' it may be that when they get their big eyes 
on the moon an' begin their travelin' backwards, on 
the beach they're sure to be landed, if there's any 
beach behind 'em. 



CHAMELEONS OF THE SEA 139 

" I don't seem to have given ye much of a reason 
for so many bein' stranded at once, but no squid ever 
explained his actions — far as I know. 

" When I was a young man I used to run a fishin' 
smack along the Banks o' Newfoundland, an' we used 
to turn this fancy o' the squids to our advantage. 

" We needed tons o' squid for bait for catchin' cod ; 
an' we used to fasten a big light in the bows of our 
boats and then put for shore. The silly squids, keepin' 
their big eyes on our illumination, would swim straight 
backwards until we'd land 'em by the hundreds on the 
Banks. 

" Did ye ever see the squids change color, little 
miss ? " the " ancient mariner " asked after a pause. 
" They '11 grow all the colors o' the rainbow, — regular 
beauties, — then all at once ye can't see one, though 
there be dozens of 'em under your very eyes. 

" If ye want to study squids, just go down yonder to 
the pier; ye can watch 'em there as much as ye like. 

" The little miss may be lucky enough to find one 
of their 'ristocratic relations 'long the beach here 
some day. There be folks that find 'em here once 
in a while." 




140 




OWN to the pier we went. There we 

found squids that were yet alive and " in 

full possession of all their faculties," lying 

imprisoned in the deep tide pools. 

No better opportunity could have been given us for 

our study, and we were not long in seeing what our 

fisherman friend had called their " changing color." 

We selected two fine specimens nearly a foot long 
that lay near together, and sat down upon the sand to 
watch their every movement. 

One squid was of a bright red color when we found 
it; the other was a beautiful blue. 

In a few seconds the little girl who wondered ex- 
claimed : " They are playing tricks on us ! The red 
one is growing blue and the blue one is green; now 

there are waves of yellow running over them both ! " 

141 



142 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

True it was : we saw pink and blue and brown and 
orange flash with great rapidity through the tissues 
covering the bodies of these wonderful creatures. 

We examined the dead squids that lay near by and 
found that small dark spots were to be seen covering 
the surfaces of their bodies. 

We walked out on the pier and looked for other 
squids in the water below us. 

For some time none were to be seen. But we re- 
membered our fisherman friend had told us, " There '11 
be times when ye can't see one though there be dozens 
under your very eyes." 

We were almost ready to give up and go back to 
our prisoners in the tide pools when along came a 
school of bass, leaping, flashing, and playing as if they 
were just "out of school," and up darted dozens of 
shining squids and caught a breakfast in their long, 
suckerlike arms, for the unsuspecting school of bass 
had seen the squids no more than we. 

The experience made us wiser, and we watched the 
wily squids sink back to the sea bottom, assuming so 
perfectly the color of the sand and wrack as again to 
be unnoticed. 

As we became better acquainted with our squid 
friends we learned that they were able quickly to 
assume the color of surrounding objects. 




*43 



MORE ABOUT THE SQUIDS 145 

This is for their protection as well as to assist them 
in securing their prey. 

The dark spots we had discovered upon the bodies 
of our dead squids showed us where lay little color 
cells covering the surface of the animal's body. 

These cells appear to run together, and upon open- 
ing and closing rapidly, at the will of the squid, they 
send the color fluids over the strange creatures in 
rapid flashes, making them really the chameleons of 
the sea. 

Besides this power which they have of making 
themselves inconspicuous, they have still another 
means of protection and of escape from enemies. 

This is an ink bag, which every squid carries. 

If too hotly pursued it forces ink from this sac into 
the sea, and the surrounding water at once becomes 
so clouded that the squid, unseen, is able to make 
its escape. 

Watching the squids darting through the water so 
rapidly, we do not wonder they are sometimes called 
" sea arrows " and " flying squids." 

Will you believe me when I tell you that the squids 
are near relatives of Prince Fasciolaria, and of Cap- 
tain Fulgur, who lived in his house boat, or of the 
Bivalves, those sea people who live in houses with 
double doors ? 



,146 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

This is really true. 

We must remember that the shell in which the 
animal lives is its house, and not the animal itself, no 
matter how closely they may be joined together. 

We find the bodies of Prince Fasciolaria, of Captain 
Fulgur, and of the Bivalve families are really made on 
very much the same plan as the bodies of the squids. 

They each have their all-important mantle. 

In the cavity of the mantle of each are heart and 
gills and nerves and digestive organs, acting very 
much alike in all of them. 

Wise people, who think they have become very well 
acquainted with them all, tell us that the squids have 
finer organisms and are much " smarter " sea folk than 
are their cousins of whom I have told you. 

They tell us too that the brains of these " smart " 
squids are in a ring around their gullets ! 

It seems to be the opinion of squids that they need 
no outside shell for protection, but that they do need 
an inside shell or backbone for support. 

So their shell is within, and is a long, slender rod. 
It is shaped something like a quill or feather, and is 
called a " pen." 

The mantle cavity in the squid is really a bag 
formed of the mantle and having its opening only at 
the end next to the animal's head. 




tXO 

G 

IB 



147 



MORE ABOUT THE SQUIDS 



149 




mm 



In this bag we find a large tube or syphon which 
carries water to the gills, and through which the water 
is forced from the cavity in such a way and with such 
power as to shoot the animal back- 
ward with great rapidity. 

The squid has also two fins that 
help it in swimming. 

Its head appears to be split up 
into ten arms. 

This gives it another name which 
is long and hard, but which means 
" head-footed," or " arms around the 
head." 

Eight of these arms are short and 
thick, and covered on the inner side 
with rows of suckers. 

The two remaining arms are long 
and slender excepting near the ends, 
where they enlarge and are oval and 
club-shaped, and are also covered 
with sucking disks. 

These arms with all their suckers are powerful 
weapons from which there is no chance of escape for 
the little sea traveler once within their grasp. 

Especially terrible is the giant squid, whose arms 
are often thirty feet long, reaching out on every 




150 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

side and armed with hundreds of these powerful 
suckers. 

Notwithstanding the weapons our common squids 
carry and the tricks they play, they still form a large 
part of the food of fishes, jellyfishes, whales, and sea 
birds. 

Even the great and dangerous giant squid fears the 
sperm whale, and in their battles the sperm whale is 
always the victor. 

Tell us, sea squids, little wonders, 
What you do and what you think. 

Can't you write us all about it ? 
Write it with your pen and ink ! 

Then the squids, the little wonders, 
Sent in gurgles through the brine, 

" We have written scores of letters 
And you cannot read a line." 

Said the squids, the little wonders, 

" We had cousins long ago 
Who have left on stony tablets 

Things that you would like to know." 



AN UGLY 




RELATIVE 




UR squid has other relatives beside such 
sea people as live in houses with their 
double doors or the steeple-house holders. 
One of these relatives is so ugly and 
so dangerous as to be called " devilfish " by the sea- 
men. 

Its real name is Octopus. 

Its body is rounded in shape, while the body of the 
squid is long. Like the squid, it has two large and 
highly developed eyes, sleepless, alert, and cruel. 

Its formidable mouth, at the top of its rounded 
body, is armed, like that of its squid relative, with two 
teeth that look somewhat like the beak of a parrot. 

This mouth is surrounded by eight serpentlike arms 
bearing their rows of terrible suckers. 

When these cruel arms once seize upon their prey 
there is no release for it, unless the arm with its 

151 



152 SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 

clinging suckers can be severed from the body to 
which it belongs. 

The prey is torn to pieces by the parrotlike beak, 
and cut by the rows of teeth upon the " tongue " of 
the animal, and quickly swallowed. 

We are told that a dozen men are barely a match 
in strength for a full-grown octopus, and that fierce 
is the battle when a boat's crew attempt the capture 
of one. 

The cuttle bone of commerce is the internal shell 
or the backbone of the kind of octopus known as a 
11 cuttlefish." 

This bone is much larger than the quill-like " pen " 
of the squid. 

The ink taken from the ink sac of the octopus is 
saved for the market, and becomes the sepia which 
artists who work in water colors use. 

With the frightful picture before us of a devilfish, 
ugly, pitiless, and savage, we are almost surprised that 
anything good can be said of the creature. 

But a mother octopus shows a devotion to her eggs 
and to her young equal to that shown by gentle crea- 
tures of a harmless life. 

This is not all, for she builds a nest for them requir- 
ing not a little labor. 



AN UGLY RELATIVE 1 53 

Those who have been able to study the life of the 
creature in its native haunts tell us of its habit of 
hiding in holes among the rocks, and there, like a 
giant spider, watching for the unwary whom it may 
seize and devour. 

In a hiding place like this a mother octopus has 
been known to make her nest, bringing together shells 
and stones for its construction. 

Thousands and thousands of eggs, tiny almost as a 
grain of sand, are laid in this nest. 

There for weeks she watches over them, fondling 
them at times with a sort of affection and guarding 
them with a dragonlike fierceness. 





154 



WRECKE 




HIP OF PEARL 




E are glad to turn from the ugly octopus 
to two other members of this family of 
whom we can tell more pleasant stories. 
These two live and sail in painted 
boats as fine as any which their cousin, Captain 
Fulgur, can command. 

One of these is the Nautilus and the other is the 
female Argonaut. 

Both little animals have the fleshy tube or syphon 
which is characteristic of the family and by means 
of which these little sailors propel their house boats 
backward through the water. 

"The little miss" was "lucky enough," as the old 
fisherman had said, to find, not one of the squid's 
" 'ristocratic relations," but the fairy boat in which it 
had made its life voyage. The little mariner was gone 
and " wrecked was the ship of pearl." 

155 



156 



SEA STORIES FOR WONDER EYES 



The shell which " the little miss " found was one 
which had been the beautiful home of a nautilus. 

These shells have several chambers, only one of 
which is occupied at a time. 

As the little inmate outgrows one pearl-lined hall, 
it withdraws from it, seals it up, and leaves it forever, 
the living room of the nautilus always being the last 
built outer room. 

Dr. Holmes has told the story of the chambered 
nautilus in a beautiful poem, and brings 
us sweet lessons from the frail tenant of 
that ship of pearl. 

The female argonaut, or the 
" paper sailor," is like a little fairy 
princess of the sea. 

Her house is in deep water far 
from jagged rocks, for her bark is 
too fragile to be beaten by angry 
waves against a rock-bound coast. 

She loves warm seas best, and sometimes through 
the clear water she is seen walking on the sea floor, 
bearing her shell upon her back after the fashion of 
her Fulgur cousin or the gay Prince Fasciolaria. 

Still this little sea fairy, who sails so fearlessly 
through stormy tides far out at sea, is not fastened 
to her house as they are fastened to theirs, but is only 




WRECKED IS THE SHIP OF PEARL 1 57 

held in her place by the broad ends of two of her 
"arms," sometimes called "sails." 

These arms seem to embrace the little boat in which 
the fairy rides. 

The delicate, crumpled shell of this argonaut sailor 
is not chambered, and seems to have been made — 
secreted, we say — by the little fairy only as a safe 
and beautiful home for her eggs. 

So this little argonaut mother does her utmost that 
her children may sail safely on " life's unresting sea." 

He who creates the planets 

And leads them on through space 

Cares for these tiny builders 

And gives them skill and grace. 

How much He cares for beauty 

Reveals each tinted shell ; 
How much for perfect building 

These pearly chambers tell. 




JUN 1 190* 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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